Jean Schoentgen from ULB Brussels will give a guest lecture with the title

“A Guided Tour of the Human Vocal Scenery “

on Thursday, Jan. 8, 14:15, in our Seminarroom IDEG134, Inffeldgasse 16c/EG.

Abstract

The focus of the presentation is on human individual uncoded vocal settings. Vocal settings are long-term biases shared by all ad rem speech sounds uttered by a speaker. Settings are the sonic background texture of the communicative speech code. Supra-laryngeal settings

are distinguished from laryngeal settings. The former are spatial warps of the neutral vocal tract shape, the latter are the outcome of non-neutral sound generating mechanisms in the larynx. The presentation reviews vocal tract settings owing to the warping of the default positions of the lips, jaw, tongue and velum. Phonatory settings are illustrated via sound generating mechanisms involving the ventricular and ary-epiglottal folds as well as audible turbulent and “stop & go” airflow. The presentation also addresses stricto sensu vocal settings that rely on registers as well as pressedness.

Biography

Jean Schoentgen was born on April 9, 1953. He received his diploma of technical engineer from the “Institut Supérieur de Technologie” (anc. EcoleTechnique) in Luxembourg in 1974, his degree de “licencié” in physics in 1979, his doctorate in science in 1985 and his habilitation diploma (“aggrégation”) from the “Université Libre deBruxelles” in 2003. He is currently a senior research associate with the National Fund for Scientific Research in Belgium as well as a part-time lecturer at the Universities of Brussels, Louvain-la-Neuve and Liège.